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Internal hard-drive for an ibook?

Y

yellow bear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
28
0
Hi there,
I feel incredibly dumb but can you buy something to put inside an ibook (or any laptop for that matter) to give you more space to save things? or do you have to buy an external drive?
I can see lots of info about memory upgrading (which makes your computer more efficient yeah?) but nothing about this, is this because it's so obvious that I should know?
Anyadvice from someone not minding to state the perhaps obvious would be of great help, thanks,
Claire
 
Markleshark

Markleshark

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2006
6,249
10
Carlisle, Up Norf!
You can upgrade the internal drive in a laptop, but its never an easy job. But yeah, they just use the standard 2.5" hard drive, upgradeable yes. Easy job, no.
 
Y

yellow bear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
28
0
Thankyou! very helpful, I have a few more questions though!

where do I buy these from? for some reason I can't find one on the mac store.
Would you recomend just buying another external instead then? I wanted something more portable, that's why I wanted to do this, I have changed hard drives around on my g4 (mirror door thingys) before, is this much more difficult (despite the obvious-it being allot smaller)?
Will I be able to find clear instructions with images about how to do this?
Thanks!
Claire
 
Markleshark

Markleshark

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2006
6,249
10
Carlisle, Up Norf!
Apple will not sell these upgrades to you. You will have to buy them from a 3rd party parts supplier, if your in the US I believe NewEgg are pretty good. If your in the UK id suggest OverClockers anywhere else... I don't know.

As for instructions for how to change it, it depends what type of iBook you have. For the G4 model this is a good guide. However, for all the other models you should be able to find something here.

If you do it or not depends if you think you can, its a big job. Honestly?... I'd buy external and not have the hassle. Up to you though.
 
zac4mac

zac4mac

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2002
306
2
near Boulder, CO. USA
If you're not into mechanical stuff that's tiny, I would recommend you go with an external. I have a late 2002 iBook 12" 800-G3 that the HDD just died. Spent two hours yesterday getting down to the hard drive. Around 25 little itty-bitty screws in a petri dish and several internal body parts. Not even sure it's gonna work if I put a new drive in, possible it fried the ATA controller...

Z
 
H

Hockeypuck

macrumors regular
Sep 29, 2006
102
0
zac4mac said:
If you're not into mechanical stuff that's tiny, I would recommend you go with an external. I have a late 2002 iBook 12" 800-G3 that the HDD just died. Spent two hours yesterday getting down to the hard drive. Around 25 little itty-bitty screws in a petri dish and several internal body parts. Not even sure it's gonna work if I put a new drive in, possible it fried the ATA controller...

Z
Click to expand...

Oh... I did one of those (only the 600 Mhz model) the other day, they're so much fun!:p

Good luck with the hard drive install.

To the original poster: The service center I work at will do installs of parts that you as a customer bought for an hour of labor. We often recommend this to people who have dead HDs and their computer is out of warranty. If you can find an independent Apple service center they can probably install it for you.

But other than that, you'll need a 2.5" ATA-6 drive, sometimes referred to as IDE. Remember NOT SERIAL ATA! :D
 
Y

yellow bear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
28
0
Thanks people, although I really enjoy fiddly little things and taking things apart and re-assembling them etc I realise that this is too important, I may mess-up! So I'm gonna get me some external.

Thing is I wanted something really portable and NOT fragile as am gonna be working with kids making animations on the laptop so a fragile external drive sitting around may be in danger! Have just found a good student offer on a lacie 250gb (porshe model thingy) but my other lacie (150gb? of the sameish model) I own is pretty fragile, any suggestions?

I have found that ultra terrain lacie drive with the orange rubbery stuff around it but it's only 120gb highest and it is quite costly for the gb you get.

mmmm........pondering!
 
Y

yellow bear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
28
0
oooooo, and.......is it easy to put new memory in? also are there more than 2 'ports' for memory in a 1GHz powerpc g4 ibook? coz i already have one 128mb and one 256mb, will I have to take one of them out?
Thanks
C x
 
H

Hockeypuck

macrumors regular
Sep 29, 2006
102
0
yellow bear said:
oooooo, and.......is it easy to put new memory in? also are there more than 2 'ports' for memory in a 1GHz powerpc g4 ibook? coz i already have one 128mb and one 256mb, will I have to take one of them out?
Thanks
C x
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they concider Memory "customer installable" so yeah, should be very easy. I believe it's just under the keyboard

http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/pdf/ibkg4/ibg4-mem-cip1.pdf

Step by step, with pictures!
 
Y

yellow bear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2006
28
0
Thankyou! I went out and bought the screwdrivers ready! (phillips 0)

so......sorry another question........
does my ibook have space for more memory or does it only have 1 or 2 ports? will I have to take one of mine out to replace it with another?

Thanks
C
 
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